Classic Blueberry Muffins Recipe

Fast, simple, and not too sweet, these are the perfect weekend muffins.

Why It Works

  • Blending butter and flour minimizes gluten development, for ultra-tender muffins.
  • A small portion of fragrant, lemony coriander makes the blueberry flavor seem more intense.
  • A spoonful of plain dough at the bottom of each cup prevents the berries from sinking.

I've got some strong feelings about blueberry muffins. For starters, I'm not talking about blueberry cupcakes. Trust me, I appreciate dessert-for-breakfast more than anyone (hello, cherry pie), but real muffins are a type of bread. While they should taste sweet enough to feel indulgent, muffins also ought to be lean enough that I can smear each half with butter and still feel a little self-righteous when I'm done.

Top down view of a basket of blueberry muffins.
Photograph: Vicky Wasik. Video: Natalie Holt

What Makes a Perfect Blueberry Muffin?

The perfect blueberry muffin is domed and delicately crisp on top, with or without a crust of sparkling sugar (yet another reason the base should be appropriately mild). Most of all, it should have lots and lots of fruit—I'm talking equal to the weight of the flour, or maybe just a little more if the berries are particularly good.

The real kicker is that blueberry muffins shouldn't disrupt your lazy weekend vibe. So, no endless creaming of the butter and sugar, or whipping eggs to fold into the dough—techniques that are great for aerating cakes and cookies (more on that here), but entirely unnecessary for proper muffins.

A split blueberry muffin topped with a pat of butter.

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

What Is Aeration?

Quick crash course: Aeration is just baker-speak for physically incorporating air bubbles into a batter or dough. In the oven, gases like steam and carbon dioxide collect within these empty pockets, expanding as they warm and thus helping baked goods to rise.

Put a different way, aeration is all about modifying the density of a batter. If we didn't whip up super-dense ingredients like sugar and butter, our cakes and cookies would be little more than solid lumps of sweetened fat, carved with tunnels where the gases were forced to climb inelegantly up and out. In fact, tunneling is a sign of poor creaming technique in cakes and cookies alike.

Why Mix Butter With Dry Ingredients?

But, in recipes where the sugar and butter represent a small percentage of the flour's weight (think muffins, biscuits, and scones), there's no need for mechanical aeration because such doughs are inherently light. I mean, what's fluffier than a buttermilk biscuit? You don't see anyone trying to improve that time-honored method by creaming the butter or folding in a few whipped eggs; it's just not necessary.

That's also true for muffins, which descend from the same family of "quick" breads—recipes that rely on the power of chemical leavening alone (i.e., the carbon dioxide generated by baking powder or baking soda).

So, instead of getting creamed into the sugar, the butter is blended with all the dry ingredients. In the olden days, that was easiest to do after melting, but today's food processors and stand mixers make short work of cold butter, quickly creating a dry and mealy "mix."

All of the ingredients for blueberry muffins: flour, blueberries, milk, eggs, spices, and vanilla.

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Chilly butter will make a batter incredibly stiff, which leads to excessive doming. While that's considered a major flaw in layer cakes, where the rounded tops must be trimmed away, doming increases the surface area of each muffin top, which most of us consider to be the best part.

Incorporating Wet Ingredients and Berries

To further enhance that effect, I use cold milk, eggs, and berries as well. But not all at once! The milk and eggs come first, creating the basic mix. Most recipes would then have you toss the blueberries in a bit of flour, ostensibly to prevent them from sinking to the bottom, but if that's all it took to defy gravity, we'd all have hoverboards by now.

No, the real trick is dropping a little cushion of plain dough into the bottom of each muffin cup. After that, the berries are folded in and the dough portioned up, each scoop sitting happily atop its pillow.

Because most muffin recipes start with a loosey-goosey batter that's more akin to cake batter, the dough will seem freakishly thick, but that's okay! Not only will that consistency produce muffins with a more pronounced dome, it'll also hold the berries in place by slowing their downward motion to a crawl. And, with that little pillow of plain dough at the bottom, you won't have to worry about soggy muffins again.

If anything, the blueberry distribution skews a little toward the top, which is fantastic for muffins because the heat of the oven winds up concentrating the flavor of the berries along the surface.

A close up of a blueberry muffin cut in half, with bursting berries evenly distributed.

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Even better, it means your muffins won't ever stick to the pan or dissolve the bottom of a paper liner. If you'd rather your muffins go au naturel, the type of pan you choose can have a big impact on how they turn out. You can read the full scoop on that here, but in short: If you'd like to keep your muffins soft and pale, choose a plain aluminum pan. If you'd prefer a more pronounced dome and browning along the bottom (yes, please!), then nonstick is the way to go.

A bowl of just-baked blueberry muffins.

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Whether you decide to keep things plain and simple, or finish up with a sprinkling of sparkling sugar (and maybe a pat of butter or two), I hope my blueberry muffins will bring us one step closer to a world where fake-muffin cupcakes are a thing of the past.

July 2016

Recipe Details

Classic Blueberry Muffins Recipe

Active 15 mins
Total 45 mins
Serves 12 servings

Ingredients

  • 12 ounces all-purpose flour (2 1/3 cups; 340g)

  • 5 1/4 ounces sugar (3/4 cup; 145g)

  • 2 teaspoons (8g) baking powder

  • 3/4 teaspoon (3g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt; for table salt, use half as much by volume or use the same weight

  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

  • 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander seeds

  • 1/8 teaspoon grated nutmeg

  • 6 ounces unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks; 170g), cut into 1/2-inch cubes

  • 4 ounces milk, any percentage (1/2 cup; 115g)

  • 2 large eggs, cold

  • 2 teaspoons (9ml) vanilla extract (optional)

  • 12 ounces fresh blueberries (2 cups; 340g)

  • 2 ounces sparkling sugar (1/3 cup; 55g) (optional)

Directions

  1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat to 350°F (180°C). Prepare a nonstick or aluminum muffin pan by greasing lightly or lining with tinfoil or paper liners. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, coriander, nutmeg, and butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix at low speed to form a mealy powder, about 2 minutes. Add milk, eggs, and vanilla (if using), mixing briefly to form a thick batter.

  2. Drop a heaping tablespoonful (about 1 ounce, or 28g if you want to be mathematically precise) of plain dough into the bottom of each muffin cup. Fold blueberries into remaining dough, which will be extremely stiff. Divide evenly between each cup. If you like, top each muffin with sparkling sugar, about 1 teaspoon each or to taste. Bake until muffins are puffed and firm, about 25 minutes. Enjoy immediately and store leftovers in an airtight container for up to 1 day.

    A photo collage of putting a bit of plain dough in the muffin cups, then folding blueberries into the remaining dough, then topping off each muffin cup.

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Special Equipment

Standard muffin pan (see notes), liners (optional), stand mixer

Notes

For muffins that are golden on the bottom and perfectly round on top, be sure to use a nonstick pan; more on the science behind that here.

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
287 Calories
13g Fat
39g Carbs
5g Protein
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Nutrition Facts
Servings: 12
Amount per serving
Calories 287
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 13g 17%
Saturated Fat 8g 38%
Cholesterol 62mg 21%
Sodium 224mg 10%
Total Carbohydrate 39g 14%
Dietary Fiber 1g 5%
Total Sugars 16g
Protein 5g
Vitamin C 3mg 14%
Calcium 72mg 6%
Iron 2mg 9%
Potassium 82mg 2%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)